The Way Forward

ultralite001

(2,326 posts) Sun Sep 7, 2025, 11:09 AM Sep 7

Ezra Klein - NY Times Opinion -- Democrats, morally speaking,

Should not fund a government that Tr*mp is turning into a tool of personal enrichment and power.

Please take a few minutes to read:

https://archive.ph/OoXEe

Thoughtful commentary by the author. His final comment:

…it’s been about six months since Schumer decided it wasn’t time for a fight, that neither he nor the country was ready. Democratic leaders have had six months to come up with a plan. If there’s a better plan than a shutdown, great. But if the plan is still nothing, then Democrats need new leaders.

7 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Ezra Klein - NY Times Opinion -- Democrats, morally speaking, (Original Post) ultralite001 Sep 7 OP

It's a "Break the Glass" moment. surfered Sep 7 #1

Amen... ultralite001 Sep 7 #2

Things have already gone too far for business as usual. usonian Sep 7 #3

Hard to disagree with that assessment. Borogove Nov 1 #4

That was a few weeks prior to the shutdown somsai Nov 1 #5

The Prospect Weekly Roundup: How the Supreme Court Legalized Political Corruption Passages Nov 2 #6

Ezra Klein is a clown: Opinion - Ezra Klein - Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way Celerity Nov 8 #7

surfered

(10,530 posts)

1. It's a "Break the Glass" moment.

Reply to ultralite001 (Original post)

Sun Sep 7, 2025, 11:21 AM

Sep 7

ultralite001

(2,326 posts)

2. Amen...

Reply to surfered (Reply #1)

Sun Sep 7, 2025, 11:45 AM

Sep 7

TIA

usonian

(22,742 posts)

3. Things have already gone too far for business as usual.

Reply to ultralite001 (Original post)

Sun Sep 7, 2025, 12:43 PM

Sep 7

Posted July 16, 2025
I'm no Ezra Klein, but maybe people listen to him.
I WANT FIGHTERS, NOT COUCH PATRIOTS (you know who you are)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220489632
copied here

WHY?

THAT'S WHY

THAT'S WHY

THAT'S WHY

Good Trouble Tomorrow
https://goodtroubleliveson.org/

General Strike Info
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10114325 (Activist HQ)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220438506 (GD)

Goddam it, we already have secret police and concentration camps.

IT MUST STOP NOW

Every day of acquiescence makes an end to fascism more costly in lost freedom and LIVES.

-------
ADDED: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

THE FUCKING WARSAW GHETTO?

GHET OFF YOUR ASSES
OR YOU'LL GHET JUST THAT

Borogove

(376 posts)

4. Hard to disagree with that assessment.

Reply to ultralite001 (Original post)

Sat Nov 1, 2025, 10:45 AM

Nov 1

somsai

(201 posts)

5. That was a few weeks prior to the shutdown

Reply to ultralite001 (Original post)

Sat Nov 1, 2025, 11:29 AM

Nov 1

This past week we had the leaders of two of the biggest unions tell the Democratic Party that it is time for them to end the shutdown.

Today is the first day that people getting food stamps, aren't getting them.

More and more air traffic controllers are not going to work as they are not getting paid, it's similar for all government employees.

We lack any power except to wreck stuff. The way to gain power in a democracy is to win elections. For quite a while our leaders have been happier to win the support of the loudest of our party and ignore the vast center. Our leaders appreciate the donations small and large of our most extreme. Good way to make money, good way to lose elections.

We have no leverage.

Passages

(3,913 posts)

6. The Prospect Weekly Roundup: How the Supreme Court Legalized Political Corruption

Reply to ultralite001 (Original post)

Sun Nov 2, 2025, 08:42 AM

Nov 2

On our live show, David and ‘Master Plan’ co-author David Sirota go through the 50-year history of corporations plotting to buy the government.

by Prospect Staff
October 31, 2025

For the last week, we’ve witnessed the spectacle of corporations literally buying a ballroom to replace the East Wing of the White House, in an obvious quid pro quo to get favorable treatment from the government. And one question that should be more prominent amid this is: How did we get here? How can something so plainly corrupt be accepted and normalized in our warped political system? A new book shows that it was really the culmination of a 50-year plot by the nation’s largest businesses to wrest back control of government for their own benefit.

This week on our live show, executive editor David Dayen talks to David Sirota, co-author of the book Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America. The story begins with a tobacco lawyer who makes it to the Supreme Court, and goes through a series of rulings that open up campaign spending to corporations and effectively strike down laws aimed at stopping public corruption. They talk about how corporations engineered these developments from the sidelines, and how a few innovative initiatives are trying to fight back.
https://prospect.org/2025/10/31/prospect-weekly-roundup/

There is a great deal for Dem leadership to convey to the voters about Trump.

Celerity

(53,225 posts)

7. Ezra Klein is a clown: Opinion - Ezra Klein - Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way

Reply to ultralite001 (Original post)

Sat Nov 8, 2025, 08:13 PM

Nov 8

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/opinion/charlie-kirk-assassination-fear-politics.html

https://archive.ph/Z8alJ

Also, Ezra Klein is one of the main pushers of the abundance agenda dross.

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-11-26-abundance-agenda-neoliberalisms-rebrand/

The past few years have seen a widespread move away from free-market dogma, as policymakers search for new economic perspectives. The election of Joe Biden in 2020 proved to be a crossroads for economic orthodoxy. For the first time in more than a quarter-century, a Democratic administration did not entrust its economic policy exclusively to adherents of Robert Rubin’s philosophy, for whom the solution to any economic issue was usually “Be less of a Democrat.”

Instead, the Biden-Harris administration trusted progressives as a coalition partner, rather than an electoral faction that had to be dealt with, not worked with. The Biden administration attempted true industrial policy for the first time in over a generation, rekindled enforcement of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and didn’t shy away from stimulating the economy when it was foundering. And while Biden’s term has been a rousing success on most macroeconomic measures—the electoral loss turned in part on global inflation and the rollback of the temporary pandemic safety net—progressives’ increasing power within Democratic politics has caused some moderates to become enraged that they’re now expected to settle for the position of senior partner, and denied near-total control.

Enter the “abundance agenda,” an attempt to generate new messaging for a new political era in which neoliberalism has fallen rapidly out of favor. The term has been floating around for years, but has more recently become a rallying cry for a whole array of deregulatory causes. The abundance agenda has also offered shelter to effective altruists, who have been searching for a flag to rally around that isn’t associated with one of the largest frauds in world history. The Biden administration has started to usher in a post-neoliberalism, with more heterodox ideas competing for acceptance. Abundance is neoliberalism repackaged for a post-neoliberal world.

What exactly abundance adherents believe varies, of course, but there are a number of broad precepts: building more housing, producing more energy, and fostering more technological innovation. None of these are objectionable goals; the differences with progressives arise, largely, in how to get there. Abundance starts from a “growth above all” mindset. The agenda’s advocates hate residential zoning laws—which, contrary to what they frequently imply, is something they have in common with us and most progressives—but also detest the National Environmental Policy Act, support fracking, oppose tenant protections, and are often deferential to the policy preferences of Big Tech.

snip

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